


Out of Bounds

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, Who's even surprised at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6680038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your complete lack of boundaries has nothing to do with me. Not locking you out is markedly different from inviting you in.”</p>
<p>Celegorm laughs at that, a dangerous sound. “Boundaries! Shall we talk about how every one of your trysting spots is carefully within the <em>boundaries</em> of my favorite hunting grounds?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Bounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LiveOakWithMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/gifts).



> To June, on the most august occasion of your birth, I give you Birthday Brotherfuckers for the second year running. Next year maybe I'll get you something normal like, IDK, Finrod fluff. ~~Finrod/Orodreth fluff? Maybe.~~
> 
> (Also these two are STRONGLY influenced by June's [Radioactive](http://archiveofourown.org/series/122958)-verse Celegorm and Curufin, which you should read because it's way better than this.)
> 
> (Also also I am posting this an hour early and hoping nobody notices until it's actually the 28th, because no queuing on AO3)

The pieces of Celegorm's existence are not separate.

There are no divisions between the hunt, battle, council chambers. He is the same in leathers, in robes, in nothing at all.

There is no difference between the corded muscles of a stag he cannot bring down, and the corded muscles of a smith he cannot have; and no difference in his gaze upon them, admiring, and covetous, and hungry, and _angry_.

“Stop,” Curufin says, his tone even but the words slowly and crisply pronounced, “ _staring._ ”

He is at the anvil, working on a knife. Celegorm has seen the designs; it will be a wicked, beautiful thing, too like its maker. He is composed—Curufin is _always_ composed—but showing the signs of work, sweat beaded on his brow and rolling down his nose, soot beneath his nails when he removes his gloves. Celegorm wants to eat him alive, and he’s not entirely sure whether he’s being metaphorical.

He relaxes, consciously, because even a wildcat knows there are opponents beyond its strength, and rolls his head back to eye the ceiling with a smirk. “I know your temper’s been short lately, but I never guessed I could irk you just by looking in your direction. Is this enough, or shall I fashion myself a blindfold?”

Curufin’s hammer rings against the metal again. He doesn’t raise his voice to be heard; he knows his brother will read his lips, because dramatics aside, Celegorm can’t look away for any prolonged length of time. “You never get any better at playing innocent. I don’t know why you continue to try. If your gaze were any heavier, I’d be bowed under the weight of it.” He considers the emerging blade, turning it this way and that to find the places it needs shaping. “Find a way to occupy yourself. I’m working, and I don’t exist for your entertainment.”

“How can you say that, when you insist on being so entertaining?” Celegorm laces his fingers behind his head, leaning back in the chair, knees spread wide in a show of arrogant unconcern. If it isn’t completely true, it isn’t exactly false either—he is less like a person hiding vulnerability behind bravado, and more like a cat making itself look bigger before a fight. “Carrying on as you do with our cousin, where anyone can come upon you—”

“I take,” Curufin says blandly, “reasonable precautions to ensure privacy. Your complete lack of boundaries has nothing to do with me. Not locking you out is markedly different from inviting you in.”

Celegorm laughs at that, a dangerous sound. “Boundaries! Shall we talk about how every one of your trysting spots is carefully within the _boundaries_ of my favorite hunting grounds? Or how you always make sure I am looking your way before groping him beneath the table?” He chases the point home like a stoat down a rabbit-hole. “Does Ingoldo know how much of your fervor is his doing, and how much comes from the knowledge that your brother might be watching?”

“Do _you_?” Curufin asks lightly, moving back to the forge to reheat the metal. “Speculating on the motives of others isn’t your strong suit.”

“Nor my area of interest. It’s observation, not speculation, and I am _very_ good at that.” Celegorm leans forward, eyes keen, elbows resting on his knees. “If you didn’t want me to watch, I would never be able to find you, much less stumble over you by accident. Don’t bother trying your misdirecting questions on me. If you want to protest your own innocence, you’ll have to convince me of your incompetence first.”

Of the falsehoods Curufin will willingly tell, underestimation of his abilities does not number. The hammer begins its song again. “Consider the possibility of having an audience to be a...garnish, rather than an ingredient. It adds a little interest to the proceedings, nothing more.”

Celegorm was wrong. There _is_ a difference between them, the smith and the stag; no stag ever escapes him so completely, then looks over its shoulder to make sure he is still pursuing.

Maybe, if there is a difference in the prey, there should also be a difference in the hunter.

He stands. He doesn’t leap up, in his usual way, ready for action, or roll to his feet like a lazy panther. Instead he rises, deliberate, controlled, looking more like Curufin for a moment than his brother has ever looked like him.

Curufin’s eyes flick to him as he does—briefly, warily, before returning to his work in pretended disinterest—and Celegorm takes satisfaction in the reaction, however slight. He steps closer, slow and measured. Curufin’s eyes stay on the metal he is shaping, but something about his posture says he is deliberately not looking.

When Celegorm circles him, he relaxes. Anyone else would feel threatened with Celegorm at their back, but Curufin _thinks_ he understands the danger. It is true that he’s had Celegorm breathing down his neck often enough to find it more annoying than startling. But that is a warm, personal sort of threatening; his tried and true means of menace. This calls for something else.

Celegorm stops directly behind Curufin, close but not so close he can be felt. He does not drape himself over Curufin’s shoulders or hiss hotly in his ear, the way he often has. He only stands; cold, impersonal, vaguely disapproving, just the way he has seen his brother do on countless occasions.

Curufin doesn’t turn around. But he clearly wants to.

“What’s the term Felagund likes, about leaving things undisturbed?” Not the best start, but Celegorm does not concern himself with complicated metaphors, normally. “Delicate ecosystem. That’s it, these _proceedings_ of yours are a delicate ecosystem. Self-sustaining, but fragile.” Curufin snorts, his focus shifting back to his work, and Celegorm curses his tongue. Another wrong word, and he’ll lose his brother’s attention entirely. “Or an architecture metaphor, if you prefer. If you maintain your balance with opposing tensions...I wonder, what happens when one of your counterweights lets go?”

He wants to stay, to see if his brother turns. But Curufin never delivers a threat with anything less than perfect confidence that it will land; Celegorm must take it on faith if he wants to emulate that infuriating coolness, and trust that he knows his brother as well as he thinks he does. He usually uses his woodskill to come upon someone silently, not to leave them that way, but it works as well in reverse.

When Curufin turns around— _if_ Curufin turns around—there is no one there.

It isn’t Celegorm’s usual way to vanish. He will have to work on that.

~

He’s playing to all his disadvantages: a long game when he is incorrigibly hasty; play-acting, when he has never been anything but exactly what he is. And high stakes—risk is a happy friend to Celegorm, but _calculated_ risk is something else entirely. He can leap off a precipice without a blink of hesitation, but this is more like standing very still at the edge, waiting to be pushed.

Disinterest is the first sally in the little war he’s waging. He doesn’t ignore Curufin; ignoring would be easier, but it would be a kind of reverse acknowledgement. He doesn’t look the other direction when Curufin leans over Finrod at supper, murmuring something against his ear that makes him shift and color faintly; but his eyes don’t linger. He notes it happening, and moves on to observe other things. It gets easier with practice.

When he walks in on them in Curufin’s quarters, his brother kneeling and Finrod not-quite-exposed but surely on the way there, he simply _hmms_ and says, “Find me when you’re done,” to Curufin. He does not linger, testing Finrod’s tolerance for awkward, innuendo-laced conversation, though the idea tempts him. He does not go to his own rooms, adjacent and well within hearing range. He simply leaves, and when Curufin finds him later, he does not bring it up.

He finds new hunting grounds. It was time, anyway; there is no shortage of forest for him to claim, and he chafes at routine. He covers his tracks in a way that he does not usually bother to. If Curufin wishes to locate his new boundaries, he won’t have an easy time of it.

He still comes to the forge, though that part is the most difficult. He’s never had the least interest in Curufin’s work, beyond the end result when it’s something practical. But now he finds himself beginning to recognize the tools and techniques, because for the first time, he watches Curufin’s hands more than the rest of him. Their conversation is very much like usual, but it drains him; holding back again and again from rising to Curufin’s barbed comments, when he has never been the one to de-escalate in his life. He feels restless and exhausted when they part, instead of angry and electric as usual.

The tradeoff is, of course, that it is driving Curufin _mad._

He hides it well, because he hides everything well. But Celegorm can read his increasing frustration as he tries, and fails, to goad his formerly hair-trigger brother into anything more invested than bored amusement. For weeks neither of them mention what Celegorm is doing; but Curufin is a different kind of stubborn than Celegorm. He can change tack far more easily, come at something from a new angle if the old way ceases to be effective. It’s not entirely a surprise the morning he decides to approach head-on.

“What, exactly, do you hope to accomplish?” he asks, pulling harder than necessary as he braids Celegorm’s hair back, making his brother growl and shift impatiently.

“ _Ow_ , Curvo, I hoped to have it out of my eyes, not fit for a formal audience!”

Curufin ignores that; Celegorm is either being deliberately obtuse, or he’ll catch up in a moment, but either way the only response he’ll dignify the comment with is another vicious tug. “If you wanted a maiden’s gentleness, you should have asked a maiden to do it. How do you imagine this will end? Or did you get that far?”

“Oh,” Celegorm says, and he can’t help engaging, just this once— “did you think it was going somewhere? No. You asked for boundaries, and I have given them to you.” He knows better than to leave his scalp in Curufin’s care after that, so he ducks away and ties off the braid himself, however half-finished it may be.

“I suppose you are trying to prove some kind of point,” Curufin says, watching him with narrowed eyes. “And then, what? I come begging to you on bended knee to go back to leering and voyeurism? You clearly haven’t considered this realistically.”

Celegorm listens placidly, though underneath it, he wonders how Curufin does this _all the time_. He is getting better at the mask—he must be, or Curufin would read him easily—but he finds the feeling loathsome. Lying about other things is easy, but lying about _himself_ is like having his nails torn out at the roots. “I admit, I had no idea how freeing it would be, not living up—well, down—to your expectations. Your demands are…” he pauses, thoughtfully, then smiles with an ease he does not feel, “incredibly taxing.” Lies. “Do you know how much work it is, trying to anticipate what you want from me?” Lies. “I should have learned years ago to listen to the spoken demands, rather than the unspoken ones.” _Lies_ , and he has no clue how Curufin is buying them, how he can possibly believe these words from the mouth of the brother he knows.

But Curufin stares at him like he is a stranger. Celegorm feels, at once, sharp triumph and twisting shame.

He _is_ a stranger.

~

He goes on the hunt afterwards. If he doesn’t, he is sure that something terrible will happen; he will give in—or worse, he _won’t_. He will stay this awful stranger who has Celegorm’s nonchalance but none of Celegorm’s warmth. He is not in the habit of fleeing, but this he runs from, before the beast he has created devours him in its ugly jaws.

This was always to be the second step anyway, leaving, giving Curufin time alone to drive home the point. He had no idea that it would be as much for his own benefit. He doesn’t tell anyone he’s going, but it won’t be any stretch to guess his whereabouts, when his bow and spear are gone and Huan is nowhere to be found.

Huan knows—because he always knows—what his master needs. He strikes out on a path and Celegorm follows, letting him lead; a day later they find the trail of a wily old boar, and stalking it distracts Celegorm entirely from his concerns.

The woods are a balm. In them, he is nothing more or less than all the other creatures. He does not have to pretend anything, because he does not matter, in the larger scheme of things. He stays out longer than he intended—at first because the weather is fine and the berry-bushes full of fruit and the beasts that graze on them just well-fed enough to be a challenge. Then because he does not want to return, because the thought of admitting defeat before his brother is only slightly less terrible than the thought of continuing to pretend, and considering either outcome puts a pain low in his gut and knots in his shoulders. Huan headbutts him when he starts thinking too hard, or climbs into his lap, and there are few things more distracting than a dog the size of a horse putting his full weight across one’s knees.

It helps. He stays out a week, then two. No one comes after him; no one could find him if they did.

Still, he cannot stay gone forever.

Two days into the third week, he is sure of two things: first, that it is time to go home; and second, that he will crawl back on hands and knees if he must, but there will be no more pretending.

He has overestimated his ability to play his brother’s games. That is not exactly a concession of being unable to compete. It’s too soon to tell whether his gamble would have worked—whether Curufin, ultimately, could stand getting exactly what he’d asked for. But he isn’t testing himself against Curufin. He’s testing himself against his own integrity, his own truth, and he has already lost.

No one can conquer Celegorm so devastatingly and completely as Celegorm himself.

~

When they were children, Curufin refused to participate in the good-natured wrestling that happened between the rest of his brothers. Even Maglor, sometimes, would allow himself to be drawn in, despite his loud protests about the delicacy of a musician's fingers; but never Curufin, who would make them sorry if they so much as tried.

It's no great surprise that Curufin is lying in wait when he returns. Whether he's somehow gathered that Celegorm is back, or has simply been there biding his time, hardly matters. Celegorm senses him before he sees him; he must have been lurking in the chair by the door, and now comes up behind his brother reeking of displeasure. Celegorm steels himself for the conversation.

There is no conversation.

The surprise comes in the form of Curufin—Curufin who considers non-lethal methods of fighting to be the ultimate waste of training and energy, Curufin who has only ever made anyone cry uncle in the purely metaphorical sense—wrapping an arm around his throat from behind, gripping his own bicep, pinching off Celegorm's jugular with fierce efficiency.

Celegorm doesn't even struggle; by the time he catches up with what the stranger in Curufin's skin is doing, the world is tilting into blackness.

He wakes a few moments later on the floor, propped drunkenly against a footstool and deeply disoriented. Curufin looms above him, wrathful and imposing—that, at least, is familiar, though usually Celegorm has been the one to put _himself_ on the floor. Celegorm waits, because this does not seem the most prudent time to mention that he's decided to back down.

Curufin's boot comes to rest squarely in the center of his chest. He leans forward, putting a little weight into it; just enough that Celegorm can't sit up easily. This is how _Celegorm_ would threaten someone, held down beneath the ball of his foot—though he'd be laughing, mocking, and Curufin is decidedly not.

The pieces of Celegorm's existence are not separate. He is what he is. And he is glad of it, now, because it is so deeply _satisfying_ to grin—unapologetic—up at his brother and ask, "Miss me, sweetheart?"

Curufin shoves, and the footstool tumbles away, dropping Celegorm flat on his back against the stone. Celegorm winces, then laughs, catching Curufin's ankle and holding him in place before he gets any ideas about storming off. Curufin puts more weight on the foot, until Celegorm wheezes a little under the pressure.

“How do you think it looks,” Curufin says, not as disaffected as he should be, “when I stand before Nargothrond’s council to argue for forestry measures which _you_ proposed, about which I care very little, and cannot even claim to have the slightest idea of where you are? It strains our credibility.”

So that’s his angle, his excuse for wrath. Celegorm isn’t disappointed, because he never expected for a moment to hear _I missed you_ or _I was worried._ He’s not even sure if those things are true, or if Curufin is genuinely only angry about losing face. It wouldn’t be out of character. “ _Your_ credibility, you mean.” He laughs breathlessly. “Everyone knows I’m a feral dog, not a diplomat. You just like them to believe you can keep me under control. I’m sure you managed to convince them all, despite me.”

“You’re _welcome_ ,” Curufin hisses, and now he’s nearly standing on the foot—all Celegorm can do is bare his teeth in reply, not quite a grin. “I shouldn’t have bothered. But if you’re finished with your little tantrum, I need an extra pair of hands in the forge.”

Celegorm’s hands will never be permitted near his work, and they both know it. It’s as close to a confession as he’ll ever get. Celegorm tries to say, _don’t you have a son for that?_ but he can’t quite manage it. Curufin reads it on him anyway.

“Don’t test me,” he snaps, and kicks free of the hand on his ankle in a precise way that says _we’re finished here_ , withdrawing his foot to go _._

Celegorm is _not_ finished here.

He rolls to his feet almost as soon as Curufin’s weight is off of him, coming after his brother as he moves for the door; but Curufin is not unprepared. He whips around and slams Celegorm against the wall, a hand pressed to his throat.

Celegorm could break the hold easily now that he’s braced for it. He doesn’t.

Instead he glances down, deliberately, at the hand, then back up to meet Curufin’s furious gaze. Or—not furious, it becomes clear, because Curufin’s fury is _cold_ , and this is hot and personal. Curufin wants him to fight, that much is obvious. He wants the excuse, a reason to channel everything into violence, instead of—well. Celegorm is intimately familiar with the feeling, and if he were entirely himself right now, he would oblige without hesitation.

Instead, he breathes shallowly under his brother’s forge-callused fingers. He considers what his brother wants, and why he wants it, and waits long enough to obey his _second_ instinct instead of his first.

He lifts a hand to grasp Curufin’s wrist, but it’s not a bid for freedom. It is, _unmistakably_ , a caress. His thumb strokes over the tracery of veins, blue beneath Curufin’s sun-sheltered skin, and Curufin doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch; not even when his hand slides forward, pushing back the sleeve, claiming more of that territory as his own.

Celegorm has a brief moment to wonder what he’s going to do when he runs out of sleeve. But he’s only halfway down Curufin’s forearm when Curufin bends his elbow, and then they are no longer an arm’s length apart, but _close._ Celegorm takes advantage of it to wrap his arms around his brother, grabbing fistfuls of his tunic and pulling him in firmly until they are pressed together and Curufin’s mouth is at his ear.

“It isn’t _you_ I can’t control,” Curufin says, bitterly, and his hand loosens.

Celegorm pants for breath in the pause that follows, and thinks of kissing him. Instead he turns his head, his cheek resting light and warm against his brother’s, and strokes his hair.

“ _Don’t_.” Curufin makes a sharp movement, though he can’t go far, the way Celegorm’s holding him. “Don’t you dare. If you want a baby brother to coddle, go find Ambarussa.”

“If you want a reliable ally, go find Nelyo,” Celegorm growls back. “But you don’t. You want me.”

Curufin closes his eyes. His lip curls, though it’s not a proper sneer. “You’re so certain.”

“Yes,” says Celegorm, and he is; but he can’t be the one to move first. Either Curufin will give in, or everything will go back to how it was. Celegorm can’t continue to disengage, but neither can he change what’s between them on his own. Curufin will have to take the step.

“You want me to slake this thirst?” Curufin hisses at last. “ _Fine_. But if you think it will help anything, you are mistaken.” He turns his mouth to Celegorm’s ear again. “It will only get worse. And I _promise_ you, every time I am distracted from my work—every time I find myself thinking of you instead of the steel before me—I _will_ take the cost out of you in blood.”

Celegorm smiles his predator’s smile, shifting his hips forward, letting the rasp in his voice become an inviting huskiness. “You know my blood is always at your disposal.”

Curufin makes a sound of disgust, but he presses right back, pinning Celegorm against the wall in a far more pleasant manner this time. His hand slides to the side of Celegorm’s neck, fingertips stretching to his nape and thumb still resting lightly against his throat. He uses the leverage to draw their mouths together, biting Celegorm’s lip with less violence than might be expected.

It’s enough for Celegorm. He gives the wall his weight and fixes Curufin inescapably against him, one arm still secure about his waist, the other wrapping Curufin’s long braid tightly around his fist as he transitions from _bite_ to _kiss_. Soon after he is using the grip to drag Curufin’s head back, baring his white neck to the mercies of teeth and lips. Curufin groans, then swears, then pushes him back with a warning—“Do not _dare_ mark me—” but Celegorm will have none of it, drawing him back in until Curufin goes pliant against him and offers his neck willingly.

And that’s the thrust of the thing, really, the difference between smith and stag. He will take down the stag if he has the means to do it, while it fights him to the last; but at the end, there’s no satisfaction in the smith unless what he takes is offered freely.

The pieces of Celegorm’s existence are not separate.

There are no divisions between his love, his lust, his anger. He is the same before a raging thunderstorm—or in the priest’s weeds he once wore for Oromë—or braced beneath his brother begging for release—

He is reverent, and violent, and wild, and alive.


End file.
